This would be a barnburner item for 12 year old girls, like my daughter and her friends. The perfect combination of technology, games, and mirrors. I'm scared to think of the hours they'd spend in front of this thing. Fun project.

Another cool thing about this gadget is that it has apps you can download. We're seeing more and more gadgets that involve smart phones. It's nice to see the gadget makers utilizing the computing power of these devices,

The Halloween gag is a great idea, one of the apps I wrote allows you to send still pictures from your phone. You could mount the mirror somewhere at the Halloween party and then send the pic from your phone when someone is in front of it.

Why limit the idea to halloween? Just think of the potential for phoney mdiums contacting the spirit world. This is a gadget that in the right/wrong hands has the potential to bilk thousands. Not to suggest that there are not good uses as well.

That's a very neat toy with a potentially broader appeal than teenagers. Heck, port the blue tooth connectivity to a digital snapshot picture frame, VGA or better resolution, and greatly expand the device's utility and marketability. Mirror, mirror on the wall, show me the nicest pix of all.

As for smart phones and remote control, we're seeing lots of creative apps coming into being. And there are may apps for engineers too. Considering the computational power and graphics display capability of your typical Android or iPhone handset compared to desktop computers of only a decade ago and its no wonder we're seeing an explosion of software apps for everyone.

The computer has gone from huge hall filling machines weighing many tons and drawing hundreds of kilowatts of electrical energy to more capable devices smaller than a shirt pocket! And the distribution of this computational technology has gone from just few gold plated corporations to grade school kids!

Yes I think so too. My original idea for this one was programmable art via a smart phone. The downside to the LED matrix technology is it's pretty low res (16 x 32 pixels in this case) but the LED effect is quite nice I think and it's a much lower profile than hanging a flat screen LCD on the wall. I have a supplier lined up and we've been talking about productizing this one so we'll see where it goes.

Eleven years ago one of those rare, brilliant moments emerged from the crack staff of Design News: Let’s put the tinkerers among our audience community to work in designing and building some truly wacky devices. And Gadget Freak was born.

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